What Should A Tradie Website Have
Price each essential feature of a trade website and see what the whole build costs. Separates the features that genuinely produce enquiries from the ones that just look good.
Each service page needs its own copy, photos and call to action to rank and convert.
The features that move enquiries are a tappable phone number, fast mobile load, real photos of your own work, visible reviews and a short quote form. The features that mostly satisfy the owner are sliders, animated counters, a blog nobody updates and a chatbot that cannot answer a pricing question.
Keep the quote form to three fields, being name, phone and a one line job description. Completion rates on phones drop noticeably with each additional field, and asking for an address or preferred date before you have even spoken is the most common cause of abandonment.
💰 Ways to save
- Build the five features that actually convert before anything else, then stop. Those are a tappable phone number in the header with a sticky mobile call bar, a service page for each thing you sell, real photographs of your own completed jobs, a visible live review feed, and a three field quote form. That combination costs roughly $2,500 to $5,000 and outperforms a $12,000 site with animations and a chatbot almost every time.
- Pay for photography once and use it everywhere. A half day photographer at $500 to $1,500 shooting four or five completed jobs gives you images for the website, the Google Business Profile, social posts, flyers and quote documents. Stock photos of generic tradespeople are instantly recognisable to customers and do the opposite of building trust, and phone snaps in poor light read as amateurish on a large screen.
- Write service pages one at a time as you can afford them rather than commissioning twenty at once. Each properly written service page costs $150 to $400 and each one is an independent asset that can rank on its own. Starting with the five services that carry your best margins gets you earning while you spread the cost, and it lets you see which page types perform before committing to the rest.
- Insist on owning the domain, the hosting account and the content in your own name from day one. A surprising number of trade websites are registered in the builder's account, which turns a $2,000 site into a hostage situation when you want to move. Ask for the domain registrar login, admin access to the site, and confirmation in writing that all content is yours before you pay the final invoice.
or from $21/week over 5 years , indicative finance
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## What each tradie website feature costs
Pricing reviewed: June 2026.
Pricing reviewed June 2026. Indicative Australian costs, not a quote.
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Understanding what should a tradie website haves in Australia
What each tradie website feature costs
Trade website quotes vary wildly because they bundle very different scopes under the same headline. Priced individually in Australia in 2026, a click to call header with a sticky mobile call bar is $150 to $400. Each properly written service page is $150 to $400. Suburb or location pages are the same, $150 to $400 each done well. A before and after gallery is $400 to $900 for the build, plus $500 to $1,500 if you also need photography. An online quote form built to actually deliver is $300 to $700. A live reviews feed pulling your Google rating is $250 to $600. Online booking with calendar integration is $1,000 to $3,000. Licence and insurance badges are $100 to $250. A complete trade site typically lands at $2,500 to $8,000.
The features that genuinely produce enquiries
Only a handful of features move the number that matters. A tappable phone number in the header is the single highest impact element on any trade site, because the majority of trade traffic arrives on a phone from somebody who wants to speak to a human now. Individual service pages are second, because they let you rank and convert for each specific thing you do rather than forcing everyone through a generic services page. Real photographs of your own completed work are third, since they are the only proof a stranger has that you can do the job. A visible review feed is fourth, and a short quote form is fifth. Those five, done properly on a fast mobile site, cost roughly $2,500 to $5,000 and constitute a genuinely effective trade website.
The features that are mostly vanity
The other half of a typical quote earns very little. Homepage image sliders are consistently shown to reduce engagement because visitors ignore rotating content. Animated statistic counters showing jobs completed impress nobody. A blog is a real asset only if somebody is committed to writing it monthly, and an abandoned blog whose most recent post is from three years ago signals a dormant business. Chatbots frustrate trade customers because the questions people actually ask, meaning how much and how soon, are the two things a bot cannot answer. Parallax scrolling and heavy background video slow mobile load, which is the one metric that directly costs you enquiries. If a quote is heavy on these and light on service pages, it has been priced for the owner's taste rather than the customer's need.
Service pages and suburb pages
The structural decision that most affects performance is how many pages you have and what each one is for. A single page listing twelve services cannot rank or convert for any of them, because it never speaks specifically to what somebody typed. Five to ten dedicated service pages, each with its own headline matching a real search phrase, its own photos and its own call to action, will outperform that page many times over. Suburb pages work on the same principle but carry a risk, since eight pages that differ only by a swapped suburb name are near duplicates and can drag the site down. Write eight to twelve genuinely distinct location pages for suburbs you actually want work in, each referencing real jobs, and skip the bulk approach entirely.
Trust signals and why they are cheap wins
Licence numbers, insurance confirmation, association memberships and a real physical service area are among the cheapest things to add and among the most persuasive. Displaying your licence number costs nothing beyond the developer time to place it, typically $100 to $250 as part of a build. For customers letting a stranger into their home, that combination of licence, insurance and visible reviews does more work than any amount of design. Pair it with real staff photographs and a genuine about page naming the people who will turn up, and you have addressed the actual objection most residential customers hold, which is not price but whether you are legitimate and will come back if something goes wrong.
Build tiers and what changes between them
Template builds at $1,200 to $3,000 use an existing theme with your content dropped in. They are perfectly adequate for a small trade business if the theme is fast on mobile and the content is genuinely yours. Semi custom builds at $3,000 to $8,000 start from a proven framework but restructure layouts, page architecture and copy for your services and suburbs, which is where most trades should sit. Fully custom design and build at $8,000 to $20,000 buys bespoke design work and custom functionality, which is justified for a multi crew operation with booking integrations, a service area calculator or a customer portal, and rarely justified for a two person business whose customers just want the phone number.
Ownership, speed and the things to insist on
Regardless of tier, three things belong in every trade website contract. First, ownership, meaning the domain registered in your name, admin access to hosting and the site, and written confirmation the content is yours. Second, mobile speed, with a target of under three seconds to load on a phone on mobile data, because trade traffic is overwhelmingly mobile and every extra second costs conversions. Third, working form delivery tested from an external device, with a copy sent to a second address. Those three add almost nothing to the price and prevent the three most expensive failures, which are being locked out of your own site, losing visitors before the page renders, and never receiving the enquiries you paid to generate.
Frequently asked questions
What should a tradie website have as a minimum?
A tappable phone number in the header with a sticky mobile call bar, a dedicated page for each service you sell, real photos of your own completed work, a visible Google review feed, and a three field quote form. Those five cost roughly $2,500 to $5,000 and outperform much more expensive sites loaded with animation.
How much does a tradie website cost to build in 2026?
A template build is $1,200 to $3,000, a semi custom build on a proven framework is $3,000 to $8,000, and a fully custom design and build is $8,000 to $20,000. Most trade businesses are best served in the semi custom range, with a complete site typically landing at $2,500 to $8,000.
Are suburb pages worth adding to a trade website?
Yes, but only eight to twelve genuinely distinct ones for suburbs you actually want work in, at $150 to $400 each written properly. Bulk pages that differ only by a swapped suburb name are treated as near duplicates and can hurt the whole site rather than help it.
Is online booking worth it for a tradie?
Only for fixed scope, fixed duration work such as safety checks, servicing or standard inspections. It costs $1,000 to $3,000 to build with calendar integration, and for variable scope jobs it creates scheduling problems you have to phone the customer to unwind, which defeats the purpose.
Which website features are a waste of money for a tradie?
Homepage image sliders, animated counters, background video, parallax effects, chatbots and an abandoned blog. Sliders reduce engagement, video and parallax slow mobile load which directly costs enquiries, and chatbots cannot answer the two questions trade customers actually ask, being how much and how soon.
Do I need professional photography for my trade website?
It is one of the better investments at $500 to $1,500 for a half day covering four or five completed jobs. Those images then serve the website, Google Business Profile, social posts, flyers and quote documents for years. Stock photos of generic tradespeople are easily recognised and undermine trust.
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